The Stellenbosch UNiversity SATellite or SUNSAT (COSPAR 1999-008C) was the first miniaturized satellite designed and manufactured in South Africa.[1] It was launched aboard a Delta II rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base on 23 February 1999 to become the first launched South African satellite. Sunsat was built by post-graduate engineering students at the University of Stellenbosch. Its AMSAT designation was SO-35 (Sunsat Oscar 35).[2]
Last contact by ground control with SUNSAT was on 19 January 2001 and on 1 February 2001 the end of SUNSAT's functional life in orbit was announced. The satellite operated in orbit for nearly 2 years.[3]
It is predicted to reenter the atmosphere after about 30 years from launch.[4]
Program cost: US $5M (Approximate); the launch was free of charge as SUNSAT was orbited as a secondary payload. The primary payload of the launch was ARGOS, and the Danish Orsted satellite was another secondary payload.
Planned lifetime: 4–5 years (NiCad Battery pack life)
2 Micro Particle Impact Detectors were included as part of experiments conducted in orbit
A team (Zaahied Cassim and Rashid Mohamed) from Peninsula Technikon designed and built circuits for both their own piezo film technology and NASA supplied capacitive sensors.
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
